Chicago beats Seattle 2.5 to 1.5

Hmm, why not popularize it for the 10 p.m. sports shows and call it "5 to 3"?  Do you think Mark Giangreco wants to do fractions on the air?  Oh yeah, chess....

Chicago Blaze Wins Season Opener

The Chicago Blaze kicked off our third year in the US Chess League on Monday night at 8pm Central Time.

We took on the Seattle Sluggers, who this year are without their superstar GM Hikaru Nakamura (he's playing for St. Louis). The board by board results were:

• FM Slava Mikhailuk (SEA) vs GM Dmitry Gurevich (CHI): 0 - 1
• IM Florin Felecan (CHI) vs FM Michael Lee (SEA): 1 - 0
• NM Joshua Sinanan (SEA) vs "Mr. Undefeated" IM Angelo Young (CHI): 1/2 - 1/2
• NM Eric Rosen (CHI) vs Alex Guo (SEA): 0 - 1

And at the end of a long night the new formula for the Chicago Blaze paid off with us defeating the Seattle Sluggers 2.5 - 1.5. This was the first time in Chicago Blaze history we won our opening season match!

We also ran a small fundraiser tournament which brought in $120 to the Chicago Blaze. Many thanks to Leo Vilker, Jae Lim, Bruce Potratz, Tim Grassel, Chris Baumgartner, and Jonathan Neumann for playing! Jae Lim won the event with the score of 3-0!

Our match next week will be against the St. Louis Arch Bishops who lost their inaugural match against fellow newcomer the Los Angeles Vibe. St. Louis ran a 2 GM lineup (Shulman and Finegold) with an IM on board three and an A-player on Board 4.

The match with St Louis will be at 7pm Chicago time and we will be at the North Shore Chess Center at 5500 West Touhy Avenue Suite A Skokie, IL 60077. We will have another fundraiser that night and I hope to see more players there!

If you would like to help the Chicago Blaze with a small sponsorship please visit our website at http://www.chicagoblazechess.com/donate.

For more information on the Chicago Blaze please visit the website at http://www.chicagoblazechess.com.